Some kind of something

Tonight at dinner I happened to take the vegetarian entrée and praised its tasty goodness to the Sisters at my table. When someone asked me what was in it, I couldn’t quite say and so simply replied “I don’t really know – it’s some kind of something.” I took some good-natured ribbing over the vague answer and the fact that I couldn’t describe a dish that had such obviously identifiable ingredients as squash and peppers and mushrooms.

Maybe there was a bit of laziness in my answer, but I don't think so because the dish was far more than the sum of its parts. And isn’t it often the case that we are at a loss for words when we encounter something wonderful and good and more than just an accumulation of ingredients?

Who can adequately tell of the mist that breathes on the pasture at dawn? Who can describe the way afternoon light slides into the envelope of evening? Who can explain how the solemn high grass begins to dance when a jaunty breeze happens by? Who can describe the way shucking corn feels like shucking sunlight, as if one is peeling away layers to get to the kernel of praise within?

Although my good veggie supper can't compare to the wondrous works of God, my inability to describe it points to something deeper - the inadequacy of language. When I savor the goodness and beauty around me, I often reach for words. But all I can really say that it is some kind of something, because who can find the right words to describe the wondrous deeds of the Lord? Ultimately, I stammer and fall silent, even as I let out the kernal of praise within.


I will bless the Lord at all times; praise shall be always in my mouth. Ps. 34:1

Hotel Magnolia

This week, our community has been on our annual retreat, a time during which the monastery is in silence, a retreat director offers a series of spiritual conferences, and we spend extra time in prayer, spiritual reading, and rest. We cease work to the extent possible except for liturgy, care of the sick, and other vital activities.

For some unknown reason, this retreat has been more restful than any I can recall. Yes, I’ve done a little work, and of course extra prayer, but overall I have spent more sustained periods at rest in my room than I have in a long, long time, much of it simply napping and catching up on sleep. I’ve also sat for long stretches in my rocker, occasionally looking up from my book to contemplate the oaks and magnolia that stand outside my open window. I have been so relaxed, so sleep-saturated, that this has seemed more like a retreat at a luxury hotel than a bit of extra time in my simple room in Joseph Hall with it's panoply of mix-and-match furniture that we affectionately call “early monastery,” the creaky windows that bang and groan with each strong breeze, the ever-present sounds of construction just outside, and the plain muslin curtains that I rescued from our last yard sale and pull back with cords left from a previous generation of drapes. It has truly felt as if my little room in Joseph Hall has become Hotel Magnolia, at least for this week.

The thing is, though, it is always like this. It is always this nice. I just don’t usually take the time to notice it and to be grateful for the safe, simple room that I call “home” here at the monastery.

By American standards, our rooms would be too simple and plain for most. But for us monastics, for whom simplicity is a basic virtue, it is not only just right, it is more than enough. One of the blessings of this quiet, prayerful week has been the opportunity to take a look around and be grateful for the gifts that surround me on all sides, and to realize that I don’t need Hotel Magnolia, because I have my quiet, simple room in Joseph Hall.


Postscript: Joseph Hall is where I am living during our renovation exodus from Ottilia. I’ll move back into Ottilia after the renovation – and yes, with the same furniture that I’m using now. I’m already scouting to see whether I’ll be able to use my simple muslin curtains that let in such wonderful light!

Vocation and memory

I recently made the long drive back to Cullman after visiting my family in South Carolina. Along the way, moss-bedecked coastal oaks slowly gave way to pecan orchards and pine plantations, miles and miles of corn and cotton, bright white gashes of kaolin, and finally the hard-scrabble hills of southern Appalachia, with small town after small town after small town strung like lights along the quiet, meandering roads.

Roadways in the rural south rarely follow straight lines and seldom intersect at pure right angles. They rise and fall and rise and fall with the gentle motion of a carousel as they wind their sinuous, sloping way along the gently curving earth, meeting at the intersection of geography and memory in an endless array of leisurely angles and dogleg turns as one road unwinds into another with the vine-like languor of a summer afternoon.

My route was a slightly different one than I usually take, and it was my first pass along some of these roads. Nevertheless, each road felt familiar, as if southern roadways meander through my internal landscape like gently twisting strands of DNA. Somehow, the landscape and roadways of the southland are part of me, clinging to my memory like wisteria in the trees of summer.

As I drove, I wondered what this familiar landscape of the piedmont-coastal plain has to do with my presence in a monastery up on the southern tip of the Cumberland Plateau, living by a rule of life written by a long-ago monk in a far-away land. On the one hand, it may seem to beg a version of Tertullian's famous question, "What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?" But on the other hand, monasticism seems to inhabit my internal landscape like a strand of spiritual DNA, imbuing my memory like the southscape that is part of my cultural heritage.

When I read the Rule of St. Benedict for the first time, it immediately made sense to me, as if it matched some already-existing interior landscape of how to seek God. It was as if I recognized the road, even though it was one I'd not yet traveled. A monastic sensibility was somehow already part of my spiritual landscape and heritage, relating me to generations of others whose longing for God was quickened by Rule of Benedict. The Rule seemed familiar, in the deepest sense of the word.

The word 'vocation' comes from the Latin 'vocare,' which means 'to call', and indeed we rightly think of vocation in terms of listening for God's call. Perhaps this listening is, at least in part, recognizing the road that is already meandering through our internal landscape like a gently twisting strand of spiritual DNA, a path that already seems familiar - in the deepest sense of the word.

For me, finding a rule of life written by a long-ago monk from a far-away land was kind of like turning onto a road I'd never traversed but somehow already knew. And now I find myself in a monastery, planted along a southern road. Both cling to my memory like wisteria in the branches of summer, bringing to blossom the seeds God has planted in my heart.